Zakharova announced Vienna's refusal to invite Russia to WWII commemorations

Vienna publicly expresses its unwillingness to invite Russian officials to commemorations of World War II, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on February 8.

"Since 2022, the Austrian authorities have pointedly and publicly refrained from inviting official Russian representatives, including our diplomats in Austria, to commemorative events," the diplomat told RIA Novosti.

The diplomat recalled that on June 20, 1947, the Soviet authorities handed over the former Mauthausen concentration camp to Austria in order to create a memorial complex there. As a result, it became one of the central places for preserving the memory of the victims of World War II and an educational and educational center for young people.

"For the Russian side, the work on Mauthausen is one of the imperatives of historical and memorial work. We work closely with the Alexander Pechersky Foundation and the Sochi Dialogue Public Forum," she added.

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Yesterday, Zakharova said that Russia would fight attempts to falsify history and distort the truth about the Second World War and its outcome. The diplomat criticized the European Parliament (EP) for adopting resolutions on the equal responsibility of the USSR and the Third Reich for unleashing the war. She stressed that this contradicts the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Charter of the United Nations (UN) and undermines the foundations of the post-war world order.

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